In general, diagnosis in the Oriental medicine is made in four categories—interviewing, listening, viewing and feeling pulse, a pulse diagnosis of judging the state of a patient by sensing the pulse of blood vessel. In the pulse diagnosis, such pulse characteristics as pulse intensity, pulse depth, pulse rate and pulse roughness are important. In order to measure the various pulse characteristics, the technique of exactly positioning blood vessels and accurately sensing the pulse is required.
In the six-site pulse diagnosis, which is one of commonly utilized pulse diagnosis techniques, the examiner places his/her three fingers (index finger, middle finger and ring finger), or each finger in sequence, on the three sites of the patient's wrist called “Chon”, “Kwan” and “Chuck” in order to measure the pulse. The middle finger is placed on the “Kwan”, or the coronary process on the radial artery, the index finger is placed on the “Chon”, about 1-1.3 cm toward the palm, and the ring finger is placed on the “Chuck”, about 1-1.3 cm toward the elbow. The examiner senses the pulse, applying a little force to the blood vessel. The pulse depth sensed by applying the force can be classified into “shallow”, “moderate” and “deep”. “Shallow” means that the pulse is clearest when a little force is applied. “Moderate” means that the pulse is clearest when the blood vessel is pressed more hardly. And, “deep” means that the pulse is clearest when the blood vessel is pressed the most hardly.
When checking the condition of the patient by pulse diagnosis, the examiner places his/her three fingers on “Chon”, “Kwan” and “Chuck” and senses the pulse while pressing the blood vessel with different forces.
But, because each individual has different standard for the sensing and pulse intensity, the judgment of the patient's condition may be different from one examiner to another and thus is less reliable, if it is solely left to the examiner's subject sensing and experience. Accordingly, a lot of researches are being conducted recently, including one on a method for analyzing pulse that enables object and visual confirmation of the patient's pulse.
However, conventional methods for analyzing pulse are restricted in that a variety of pulse diagnosis techniques depending on the site of examination and the patient's constitution cannot be applied due to inability to exactly measure the pressure. And, the collected pulse data cannot be fully utilized.